Wednesday, 9 June 2004

From "Paradise & Method"

By Bruce Andrews.

[...] I find it troublesome to hear "politics" being instrumentalized -- as for instance it is in neo-populist discussions; or to think that the whole notion of politics involved with writing is being narrowed down to specific struggles toward change, while the contexts that are actually directly implicated in the use of writing are ignored. Because this can corrupt our conception of what the public realm looks like by bringing with it, or even valorizing, manipulation or a kind of "means justify the ends" point of view about what to do, how to proceed, and what's at stake. I'm suggesting instead that politics can also bring to mind the older sense of community good or public good, not just specific struggles. The idea of politics as, for instance, a matter of arranging community matters needs to be reinstated.